The River Flows On by Maggie Craig Read Free Book Online Page B

Roused from dreams of ships gliding into the river, Kate sat bolt upright and threw the blankets off. There was a low growl of objection from Mr Asquith, curled up at the foot of the bed. Beside Kate, Jessie gave a small grunt of protest.
    ‘Kate! Your father’s having one o’ his nightmares!’
    Pausing only to hurriedly replace the blankets over her sleeping sister, Kate padded through to the front room, the oil-cloth on the floor cold and sticky beneath her bare feet.
    Wee Davie, woken by the noise, was screaming in his drawer-cot, his mother making frantic efforts to calm him down.
    Neil was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand clinging onto the brass bedstead. He was wild-eyed, his hair dishevelled. Lily, lifting Davie to calm him, cast a worried glance over her shoulder.
    ‘It’s all right, Mammy,’ said Kate, quelling her own rising panic. She crouched in front of Neil. He was muttering to himself, a low-voiced stream of words in the Gaelic none of his family could understand. Kate took a deep breath. She had seen him like this before. Many times. She had calmed him before. She could do it now.
    ‘Daddy,’ she said softly. ‘Daddy. It’s all right.’
    He lifted his head at the sound of her voice and focused painfully on her face. His hands shot out and gripped her shoulders. Kate winced. She was going to have bruises there tomorrow.
    ‘He’s coming for me! The Devil! He’s coming for me!’
    ‘Kate! Tell him not to say these things!’ Her mother was sobbing. Wee Davie, held in an iron grip to his mother’s breast, was bawling at the top of his lungs. Jess and Pearl would be awake by now, Kate thought grimly. If they’ve any sense they’ll stay where they are.
    With her mother screeching in one ear and the whole household roused, she spoke quietly but firmly to her father.
    ‘You’re fine, Daddy. You’re safe. At home with us in the Yoker.’ She had to repeat it over and over again until the glazed eyes focused properly on her and the iron grip on her shoulders relaxed. The tension went out of him and the rigid body slumped. He spoke her name.
    ‘Kate?’
    A shaky hand came out to stroke her hair. Her sigh of relief was cut off by her mother thrusting the baby into her arms. ‘Settle Davie down while I attend to your father.’
    She bundled Neil back into the bed before fetching a stone piggy to put at his feet, refilled with hot water from the big black kettle which stood hissing on the range day and night.
    Kate’s own feet were like lumps of ice by the time she got back into the box bed. Wee Davie had taken a while to settle.
    ‘Is Daddy all right, Kate?’ came a small voice from the darkness.
    Kate patted Jessie’s neat little hand. ‘Aye, he’s fine now. Away back to sleep, you.’
    ‘Why does he have the bad dreams, Kate?’
    ‘I think,’ said Kate, pausing to think how to phrase her answer, ‘because of the things he saw in the war. It was terrible for the soldiers in the trenches, you know?’
    She wondered if Jessie would ask more questions, but in a few moments she heard her sister’s breathing change and knew that she was asleep. Oblivion for Kate took longer to come.
    The first glimmers of dawn were creeping through the gap in the curtains before she dozed off. The light allowed her to see the little carved robin, the red splash of paint on its breast growing clearer and clearer in the early morning light.
    Red for danger. Red for life. Red for blood. Neil Cameron must have seen terrible things in the war - must have done terrible things too, been forced to do them. How awful that must have been for a man as gentle as her father; how awful to have memories that tormented you for the rest of your life, so terrible that you thought the Devil would claim you as one of his own.

Chapter 4
    Kate was so happy she thought she might faint with the sheer joy of it. Oh, Mammy, Daddy, wouldn’t that be terrible! She straightened herself up in the high-backed chair and